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As everyone already answered, just explore. Skyrim is huge and you can just wander aimlessly, do random quests from random people, pick up flowers and follow headless ghosts to the middle of nowhere. Immersion isn't it's strong point, so if you want to be absorbed into a great storyline - well, it won't happen.

Indeed. TES has a different approach. You don't take up the role Bethesda gave you; you make up your own role. The main quest is nothing more than a way to get some Shout powers. Most of the game is side quests; the Skyrm main quest is just something to build the rest of the story around.

Indeed. TES has a different approach. You don't take up the role Bethesda gave you; you make up your own role. The main quest is nothing more than a way to get some Shout powers. Most of the game is side quests; the Skyrm main quest is just something to build the rest of the story around.

Exactly, I have yet to have a single character 'do it all'. My thief certainly avoids joining the civil war. My assassin got into the war because she's a psychopath that just loves killing and she figures the Empire is a better place for business and for a dark elf. Since the war, she amuses herself killing every human soldier that turns his back while alone.
My mage thought the Companions were lunatics and the thief guild was beneath her.

And so on... basically the immersion is - you're in this world and getting by. That *is* the immersion. There's only a few places where it kind of breaks. I liked that my redguard 2h warrior could get what was needed from the mage's college without having to join, for example. They gave the Dragonborn access.

My favourite element in Skyrim that is different, compared to Oblivion or Fallout3, was that there is no hard coded morality.

There is laws of the land. And there is alliances. Wrong someone, and they and their friends will hate you. But at no point were we just judged to have done something "good" or "bad".

If you kill someone or steal something with not witnesses, there is little consequences other than the odd random hired thug (and that seem to only happen once per character only.) So the only thing that stops you from stealing and killing innocents is your own morality. If you don't steal or kill, you are not rewarded for it. If you steal or kill, you are not punished for it. You are not told to act a certain way to fill up an omnipresent karma meter; why you do something is mostly left up to you.

Really, that's what gave Skyrim even more freedom than its predecessors. You are no longer told to enforce what the creator thinks is moral, they leave that up to you. Like how that one time I decided to not carry out an extra assassination on a woman who had no business being dead. The contractor was annoyed that I didn't do that extra job as an assassin, but there are lines even the Dark Brotherhood don't cross. What I do or not do makes my character who she is.
(I would have killed the contractor for good measure after she insulted me in the end, but unfortunately the game made her Essential.)

There are no bounds on what the character should do or don't; the player makes his/her own rules, and whatever decisions made will affect gameplay.

As an aside, this here below will really require the power of the most expensive custom gaming PC (which might as well be a very high-end graphical/CGI workstation or in essence put an 80's-era Cray to shame):http://www.asot.es/2001/09/skyrim-mods.html

'fraid not. Bethsoft says it'll be out for PC and PS3 "early next year".

A number of other things in the DLC are reportedly "trollish" in implementation.

Werebears are in, but they're not playable. (this I don't care about.)

Spears are in, but you can't use them as spears, but as arrows. (justified in being Reikling spears and thus tiny as hell.)

Dragon riding comes with combat, but you can't control the dragon--it's a rail shooter. You hop on the dragon, and pick a fast-travel place on the map, and the dragon will fly there. In the meantime you can target enemies and attack with magic (or have the dragon attack in your stead) but you can't control where the dragon goes. We'll need mods for that.

The reasoning for the lack of spears is because its apparently impossible to implement them in the game engine. Which everyone understands is bullshit because modders have already accomplished this:

'fraid not. Bethsoft says it'll be out for PC and PS3 "early next year".

A number of other things in the DLC are reportedly "trollish" in implementation.

Werebears are in, but they're not playable. (this I don't care about.)

Spears are in, but you can't use them as spears, but as arrows. (justified in being Reikling spears and thus tiny as hell.)

Dragon riding comes with combat, but you can't control the dragon--it's a rail shooter. You hop on the dragon, and pick a fast-travel place on the map, and the dragon will fly there. In the meantime you can target enemies and attack with magic (or have the dragon attack in your stead) but you can't control where the dragon goes. We'll need mods for that.

The reasoning for the lack of spears is because its apparently impossible to implement them in the game engine. Which everyone understands is bullshit because modders have already accomplished this:

Just like I was in the fanfiction scene (which is never short of fandom drama), there are some mod authors who are just too proud or mishear you when making a remark (especially some of them who could barely understand English as a secondary or tertiary language), like this one:http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27842

He thought I was a mod author shitting on his mods, even though the language I used was congratulatory and I wanted to try them out. Even if I'll use it, I'm not going to be sucked into the drama.

Just like I was in the fanfiction scene (which is never short of fandom drama), there are some mod authors who are just too proud or mishear you when making a remark (especially some of them who could barely understand English as a secondary or tertiary language), like this one:http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27842

He thought I was a mod author shitting on his mods, even though the language I used was congratulatory and I wanted to try them out. Even if I'll use it, I'm not going to be sucked into the drama.

That's the biggest flaw of the whole Nexus environment (and probably others). The hamhanded "no criticism because we're all delicate little flowers" attitudes coupled with moderators that feel the same way. A lot of mods *need* constructive criticism (e.g. "this sucks" is not useful criticism) but like I said ... "delicate flowers" abound.

In other news, Skyrim Monster Mod's creator got banned and reinstated with practically no privileges on account of two of his mods having illegal content. Dunno if that's going to get fixed or not, but no one has legal access to SkyMoMod.

Also, because I goofed up and admitted to using my brother's account to post in an NMM bug report thread on his behalf (as his NMM was screwing up and if I posted using his account as I attempted to solve it he'd be able to keep track) I may get banned. The moderator who I had spoken to hasn't decided yet. He may have forgotten I'm still there, but yeah. I may have just screwed myself for helping my brother. *sigh*

In other news, Skyrim Monster Mod's creator got banned and reinstated with practically no privileges on account of two of his mods having illegal content. Dunno if that's going to get fixed or not, but no one has legal access to SkyMoMod.

Also, because I goofed up and admitted to using my brother's account to post in an NMM bug report thread on his behalf (as his NMM was screwing up and if I posted using his account as I attempted to solve it he'd be able to keep track) I may get banned. The moderator who I had spoken to hasn't decided yet. He may have forgotten I'm still there, but yeah. I may have just screwed myself for helping my brother. *sigh*

Yeah, the whole cultural framework is dysfunctional, to be nice about it. I just compliment the good mods and try to make sure I've read the *entire* writeup all the threads on a mod before I ask any questions at all.

In other news, Skyrim Monster Mod's creator got banned and reinstated with practically no privileges on account of two of his mods having illegal content. Dunno if that's going to get fixed or not, but no one has legal access to SkyMoMod.

Also, because I goofed up and admitted to using my brother's account to post in an NMM bug report thread on his behalf (as his NMM was screwing up and if I posted using his account as I attempted to solve it he'd be able to keep track) I may get banned. The moderator who I had spoken to hasn't decided yet. He may have forgotten I'm still there, but yeah. I may have just screwed myself for helping my brother. *sigh*

Fortunatelly the guys from Vgunetwork hates nexus, so he uploaded the latest SkyMoMod update there

^
Bookmarked and checking it out now, but there's another forum (which I'll say where only by PM) that hosts mods considered unacceptable by Nexus -- mostly game model rips (some of which are very impressive works TBH) or very risque content.

----
EDIT: I wanted to do a new playthrough but I was worried about losing the character face settings I made (got it so damned perfect after going through many mods), and didn't want to go through the whole rigmarole when I stumbled upon this:http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/15307

Did as directed, and voila! It's my character again, now refreshed nicely and ready for action! Gonna upload my level 1 gamesave (and the old ones) to Mediafire so that just in case I need it perfectly...

Man, it saved me the hassle, and heck I was even shedding manly tears for this right now!